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Fall 2006-2007

With the coming of our
second fall in our new location, school was back in session. That did not
keep us from still having fun. There was lots of great bike rides, swims
and taking advantage of local activities like the Reno Air Show and the Boomtown
Monster Trucks o.
There were more school plays at Christmas o, another fun Christmas season, more
snow and more skiing. Mike and Dana had fun at the girl scout father
daughter dance o. Dana and
a few of her friends grew their hair out so that
there was enough to cut off o and send in to Locks for Love. She looked so
cute with short hair! Both kids auditioned for and got into the Missoula
Children's Theater production of Robin Hood o.
This was an incredible experience for everyone. On Monday, the kids
audition. Tuesday, they start rehearsing and by Friday they are ready for
the performance. The teachers/acting coaches are amazing. They
travel for 50 weeks of the year, in a different town every week, and they do
wonders with the kids. Very cool experience. They both wanted to
audition for the next one, but we were out of town that week. We went to
Southern California to visit family and to do some work in Santa Barbara.
We had some great visits, drove back through Big Sur (Nancy's old stomping
grounds), went for a beach walk in Carmel with an old friend and then spent the
day at the Aquarium. What a place. The jellies are still the most
amazing. On the way back to Tahoe we had a nice evening with some of
Nancy's family in Sacramento. The next thing that came up was Dana's
double digit birthday, the big 10! She invited several friends
to Boomtown for a day of fun at the arcade o.
The big deal for this birthday was that she was going to get her ears pierced.
The bummer was that she had to wait until after her dance performances because
absolutely NO jewelry was allowed and her ears would not be healed enough to
take the earrings out. Both Dana and Fletcher were in the Spring Jazz
dance show o
and they both performed very well and had fun with the process. We had a
nice fathers day spent on the lake with our kayaks o.
This second year, there was not much of a winter and it started warming up quite
early. We actually started going in the lake around Easter! Fletcher
graduated from Grade School o
and we went straight from the graduation to our first family backpacking trip in
Desolation Wilderness. We got to the trail head and loaded up for a five
day adventure o. We
hiked in 6 miles and then hiked around some more to find the perfect camp site.
We found the most beautiful spot. We stayed in the same spot all five
nights since it was so pretty. Every day we hiked to a different lake.
We fished, swam, jumped off rocks and had a great time just hanging out as a
family and even taking naps! It was also Mike and Nancy's anniversary
during this trip, so we even packed in a steak dinner, bottle of wine and Gran
Marnier! We never seem to have trouble finding a way to eat well.
While we were back in the wilderness, a fire had started. When we woke up
the second day, the valley that we were in was completely smoked in and our tent
was covered in ash. We could not tell where the fire was burning, or if we
needed to evacuate if we should start to walk north or south. Needless to
say, we were a bit concerned. The kids and Nancy stayed around the lake,
where camp was, while Mike hiked out to try to get cell phone connection to the
ranger station. Just when he was getting reception, he ran into some
fishermen and they gave him the latest. The fire was not that far away,
but it seemed that we were ok for now and at least we now knew where it was so
that we would head in the right direction if we needed to get out. When we
hiked out, everyone was pretty concerned about us since they knew that we were
in the general vicinity of the fire. Never a dull moment for the
Desiderata crew! As soon as we got back from this adventure, Fletcher's
second season of All-stars was starting o.
This time he was moved up with the older boys into the majors. They played
very well, but did not make it as far as the year before. Dana had also
decided that she wanted to play ball, so she signed up for softball o.
She actually played with the older girls and did very well and had a great time.
We had a very nice 4th of July at one of our favorite spots on the Lake o.
Nancy's dad came for a visit in July, so there was a mini Berenson family
reunion with 2 of the siblings, their kids and Granny and Zeda o.
We had a great time showing them the lake and then went for a visit to a close
family friend's that lives nearby. Mike's brother and family stopped by
for a visit on their way driving south. We had such a nice visit and again
got to show off our favorite spots o.
Mike and Nancy had a fun day flying to Napa Valley for some wine tasting and an
incredible meal at Copia o.
They had bid on this trip at a benefit auction and had been trying to schedule
it for almost a year! It was worth the wait, what a decadent thing to do!
We got to fly over the Sierras, started the day with a champagne tasting, moved
on to one of our favorite wineries before heading to our lunch reservation.
Oh my gosh, the food was so good, we cannot even begin to describe it. We
had to race back to the airport to make our flight back to the mountains before
sunset, but what a memorable day! The kids (and Hopper) spent the next
week at our dear friends that live very close by.
The main focus of the trip was to be horses
o , but they got to do so much more...
fishing, berry picking, pie baking, driving convertibles, going out to a movie
and dinner
o. They did not want to leave. When they returned from the
"horse camp" Dana had a week of ballet camp o.
At this time the girls also got their ballet exam results. Dana passed with
flying colors. She had only been dancing a year and did so well. Her
teacher was pretty amazed and we were all very proud of her. Mike finished
working at his job to concentrate on getting ready for moving back to the boat.
We had some crazy situations come up getting back to the boat, but finally,
spread out over a month long period, we all made it out of Tahoe where we had
spent such a great two years.

Dana and Fletcher in the Missoula Children's Theater production
of Robin Hood; Dana's 10th birthday party; Both kids in the spring
Jazz dance show; Father's Day on the lake.

Fletcher's graduation from Tahoe Lake School.

Summer 2007, five day backpacking trip into Desolation
Wilderness.

Fletcher's second year making it to All-stars! Dana's 1st season
of softball, July 4th
site; Nancy's family gathering; Mike's brother came to visit; Mike and Nancy fly
to Napa for a late anniversary date.

The kids (and Hopper) spent a week at Pat and Sally's learning
about horses...

They also fished, swam, picked berries, learned to drive a
convertible and had a general great time!